1. Field
This disclosure is concerned generally with the transport of an anaerobic microbe specimen from a place of collection to a place of examination. More specifically, the disclosure is concerned with the use of a medium which is especially useful for the transport of a microbial sample under strictly anaerobic and substantially non-growing conditions.
2. Prior Art
The anaerobic bacteria are a class of microorganisms the growth and survival of which requires an environment substantially free of oxygen. In many cases (e.g. for purposes of identifying or studying the anaerobes), it is necessary to transport a sample of anaerobic bacteria from a collection point to an examination point under conditions which exclude substantially all contact with air or oxygen. For example, since it is known that certain anaerobic bacteria are responsible for a variety of infections (surgical wound, uro-genital, pulmonary, etc.), it is often necessary to collect, transport, and culture specimens under anaerobic conditions to determine the cause and treatment for a given infection. Since even traces of oxygen may be toxic to anaerobic bacteria, it is clear that the collection, transportation, storage and culture of any specimen (clinical or otherwise) should be done under suitable anaerobic conditions.
The ideal bacteria transport system would allow the survival of all types of microbes (aerobic and anaerobic) without allowing the multiplication of any. Although a variety of different transport systems consisting of swabs in tubed media is commercially available, none is fully suitable for the transport and/or storage of anaerobic specimens. See, for example, Ederer, G. M. et al., "Evaluation of Bacteriological Transport Systems", Amer. J. of Med. Tech. 41, 299-306 (1975). Although sterile mineral oil has been used to cover the surface of certain cultures and thereby merely exclude contamination from atmospheric oxygen, we are unaware of the use of any such fluid to not only exclude oxygen but also enhance anaerobicity.
It has recently been suggested that specimens destined for anaerobic study should be transported under anaerobic conditions without the use of nutrient media or chemical reducing agents. See, for example, Anaerobe Laboratory Manual, Ed. L. V. Holdeman et al., Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 1973, wherein the collection and transport of fluid specimens in syringes and the transport of solid specimens via swabs in tubes containing O.sub.2 -free CO.sub.2 are recommended.
We have now developed an anaerobic specimen transport system which permits the transport and/or storage of anaerobic specimens in a non-nutrient anaerobic milieu in which the activity of any contaminating oxygen from the specimen itself is lessened without the use of chemical reducing agents. Details of our anaerobic specimen transport system and methods of using it are described in detail herein.